Career Bourses in the Frameworks of the Project Economic Education in Bulgaria 2030

In the period 29-31 May 2023, three career bourses take place at the UNWE. The events are organized within the project BG05M2OP001-2.016-0004-CO1 - Economic Education in Bulgaria 2030 and provide for students the opportunity to meet with leading employers.

Career bourses are thematically distinct and focused in different areas. On 29 May the young people will be able to make contact and exchange information with employers offering jobs for economists in the IT sector, 30 May is dedicated to jobs for economists in the public and private sectors, and on 31 May job opportunities for economists in the NGO sector will be presented.

The Rector of UNWE Prof. Dr. Dimitar Dimitrov, who is also the Project Head and Assoc. Prof. Dr. Rosen Kirilov, Vice Rector for Digitalization and Cybersecurity and Project Coordinator /from the right to the left/

The Rector Prof. Dr. Dimitar Dimitrov opened the event: "I would like to welcome the business representatives who are among us and I am glad that we have the opportunity to give a start of series of career bourses. We encourage such policy, such events are also included in the activities of the project Economic Education in Bulgaria 2030. UNWE was among the first universities to organize and implement career forums. We do this for our students so that they can actually meet the business, take advantage of opportunities for internships and sharing valuable experience, to support their professional development. Feedback from our students shows that they are pleased with these initiatives".

"Within the three career events we have more than 20 employers thematically distributed in the three sessions. It is a good format which we hold two weeks after the Career Days which the Student Council at UNWE traditionally organizes jointly with Rabota.bg", emphasized the Vice Rector for Digitalization and Cybersecurity Assoc. Prof. Dr. Rosen Kirilov, Project Coordinator.

"We are one of the first companies in the IT sector, we to plan, develop and maintain IT projects. We look for young people to hire who are interested in developing in this field as system integrators, consultants, sales people. Together with our team of professionals who have experience in training, students can meet a good career development, a good career start with us", said Maya Petrova, representative of company RISK Electronics.

"Our company develops video games both our own and we help clients develop their own. We've been in business since 2006 but we officially established a gaming studio in 2016. We are looking for all kinds of profiles, of course, mostly in programming, but also accountants and HR specialists and others, I think it will be interesting for students", said Denis Rafailov from company Phoenix Media.

Maya Petrova	Denis Rafailov

"Our company was founded in 1995 and it is an established systems integrator with a wide range of expertise. For the last 15 years we have been focusing on business process automation and business analytics. In this business, we are in a serious need of personnel with specialization in business informatics, business analytics and we think that the replenishment with personnel has nowhere else to come except from the universities. We actively participate in all forums wherever there is an opportunity. We have been developing internship programmes for a long time basing on contacts we make during the career forums", said Geno Genov, representative of company Paraflow Communications.

Spas Ivanov, Managing Director of company BaseLine Cybersecurity, expressed thankfulness for the invitation to participate in the Forum and outlined: "Our company specializes in cybersecurity and in providing services related to cybersecurity. We are very interested in profiles of students and future professionals who can perform business analysis and somehow direct it towards cybersecurity requirements. It will be very interesting for me to talk to the students on the cybersecurity and the future of cybersecurity".

"We are a company that is focused on providing software validation and verification services. Such forums are the shortest way for students to move from the university to the desired IT specialty", said Vasil Tabakov, representative of company SQA Service.

Geno Genov	Spas Ivanov	Vasil Tabakov

The project BG05M2OP001-2.016-0004-SO1 - Economic Education in Bulgaria 2030 is funded under the Operational Programme Science and Education for Smart Growth 2014-2020 under the procedure Modernization of Higher Education Institutions. The project is worth BGN 5 million. The UNWE should modify its training, respectively the curricula in Economics and Management, in a way that allows them to be similar to programmes in European universities and applicable in the modern business conditions. The updating and modernization will be done in partnership with other regionally leading universities such as D. А. Tsenov Academy of Economics - Svishtov, Burgas Free University, National Sports Academy and the Confederation of Employers and Industrialists in Bulgaria /KRIB/. Through this cooperation up-to-date curricula based on digitalization will be created and put into practice. 9 digital classrooms and 3 digital laboratories which are an indispensable addition to the modern learning process will be operational. It will enable the sharing of resources, including know-how between the partner universities and/or between the students and their university lecturers and mentors to be maximized.

The project relies on the inclusion of a large part of the lecturers involved in its implementation in the programmes for further training and/or short-term specialization in the foreign partners and the share of young scientists should be at least 15 percent. It is planned to implement 15 joint programmes with partner Bulgarian higher education institutions and to introduce 7 new programmes with digital educational content, including distance learning. 2 training programmes in a foreign language will be introduced in cooperation with foreign universities and scientific organizations.

The project will provide support for students to develop entrepreneurial skills and digital creativity. The project will be implemented for 30 months and all of the above will contribute to improve the quality of economics education at the UNWE and in Bulgaria, as well as to improve the quality of research at the UNWE and other partner universities.